Socialization

I. Introduction

Human Infants are born into ongoing social units. They benefit from
the activities of the members of these units. It is the more mature
humans that provide them with necessary protection and assistance. Of
course, society would not survive if it did not have replacement of the
members who leave or die. New people need to be added and thought
the rules and benefits of society or the existing social order will be
destroyed. This continuity in society is made possible through the
process of socialization.

II. Summary
 Becoming a person: Biology and Culture

Biological processes stimulate children’s physical development;

coordination and strength gradually improve, so they can feed themselves
and walk. While these biological developments are occurring, children are
talked to and handled by caregivers who provide them with food and
protect them from physical harm. These social interactions with caregivers
are essentials from normal development.

Spitz studied in institutional setting children who received adequate

physical care like food, cloth clean bedding, adequate toilet facilities, etc.,
but did not have caregivers who handled and cuddled or talked to them.
The children not only lagged behind others of their age in intellectual
development but also suffered impaired physical health, apparently
because of their lack of social contact. Such studies indicate that we must
examine more closely the role of nurture, or socialization, in human
development, as well as the role of nature, biological processes.
 The Processes of socialization

The long period of dependency allows children time to learn

things they need to know in order to care for themselves and
become members of society. The long and complicated process of
social interaction through which the child learns the intellectual,
physical, and social skills needed to function as a member of society
is called socialization.

The process of socialization begins at birth and continues

throughout all of life. During early childhood, we learn, most of all,
from our parents who teach us through instruction the values,
norms, and skills that they already have. The child also learns by
observation and imitation.

At the same time that we are learning skills through interactions

with our parents, we are also acquiring a self-identity, a conception
of who we are. Here, we come to realize that as brothers or sisters,
son or daughters, students or friend, we play number of roles and
that certain behaviour is expected of us in each of these roles.

According to fichter, socialization is a process of mutual influence

between a person and his fellowmen, a process that results in an
acceptance of, and adaptation to, the pattern of social behaviour. It
does not mean that the person ceases to be an individual. A person
becomes social when he learns to get along with other people. The
human being is a social person from the beginning of his life, but he
undergoes continuous adaptation and changes as long as he lives.

Socialization can be described from two points of view:

 Objective socialization

Refers to the society acting upon the child.

 Subjective socialization

Process by which the society transmits its culture from one

generation to the next and adapts the individual to the accepted and
approved ways of organized social life.

 The functions of socialization are:

 To develop the skills and disciplines which are needed by the

individual.
 To instil the aspirations and values and the “design for living”
which the particular society possesses
 To teach the social roles which individuals must enact in
society.

The process of socialization is continuously at work “outside” the

individual. It affects not only children and immigrants when they first
come into the society but all people within the society in all of their
lives. It acts upon people it provides them the patterns of behaviour
which are essential to the maintenance of society and culture.

 Importance of socialization

Socialization is vital to culture. Socialization is important to

societies as it is to individuals. It is through this process of
socialization that every society transmits it culture to succeeding
generations. Through this continuing process, each generation
acquires the elements of its society’s culture—its knowledge,
symbols, values, norms, beliefs, etc.
 Socialization is vital link between cultures. If this process of
cultural transmission is disrupted, a culture disintegrates or even
dies.

Socialization is vital to personality. The process of socialization

also plays a very vital role in personality formation and development.
The training of every child received through the process of
socialization attachments when they learn to feel for others and see
that other care for them. Again, the element of isolationism affects
the personality development of an individual.

Socialization is vital to sex-role differentiation. Socialization

provides every individual the expected role he or she plays in the
society according to their sexes.

In early years, it was believed that differences in behaviour

between boys and girls, men and women, were “inborn” and
“natural.” Biological factors determined the abilities, interest, and
traits of the sexes. Biology not only made men bigger and stronger,
generally than women, it also endowed them with instincts for
hunting, fighting, and organizing. Biology gave women the ability to
bear children, and instinct to complement them--gentleness and
domesticity.

However, Margaret Mead, a world-renowned anthropologist,

proved otherwise. Mead studied primitive societies where sex roles
differed sharply those found in Western society. Mead observed that
in one tribe, men and women were equally “maternal” toward
children; in another both men and women were fierce and
aggressive; and, in a third, women were more dominant than men;
men were submissive. Mead concluded that “masculine and feminine
behaviour was not inborn but was learned.”
 Many Filipino parents would tolerate their girls’ playing and enact
role in their bahay-bahayan, and the boys, in their war games.

 Social frame of references

The process of socialization can ultimately be reduced to the fact

that the individual learns by contact with society. The difference
between simple learning and social learning is not in who learns, or
in how he learns, but in what he learns.

Sub processes in social learning:

Imitation. This the human action by which one tends to

duplicate more or less or exactly the behaviour of others.
Suggestion. Suggestion is a process outside the learner. It is
found in the works and actions of those who are attempting to
change the behaviour of the learner.
Competition. It is simulative process in which two or more
individuals vie with one another in achieving knowledge.

It is clear that the essentials prerequisites of social learning are

contact and communication. Babies and their caregivers may
communicate nonverbally through touching and non-linguistic
verbalization (cries, giggles, humming, etc), but they cannot
communicate as socialized people normally do, that is, through the
manipulation of symbols. Human life is quite different from that
other animal because people are able to use languages or symbols
systems to communicate.
  Components of socialization

The end or goal it is intended to achieve;

The motivation for its being undertaken
The situation or context within which it takes place
The norms or rules that regulate it.

Goals and motivations. Goal is the state of affairs one wishes to

achieve. Motivations are a person’s wish or intention to achieve a
goal. Hence, behaviour such as reflex has no goal and consequently
no motive.

Norms. Norms refer to the rules that regulate the process of

social interaction. Human behaviour is not random. It is patterned
and, for the most part, quite predictable. What makes human beings
act predictably in certain situations? For one thing, there is always
the presence of norms—that is, rules for proper behaviour that
guides people in their interactions. Norms tell is the things we should
both do and not do. Our society’s norms are many and we are often
not even aware of them. Norms tell us that when two people meet,
one of the ways of greeting people is by shaking hands. Yet, in most
Asian countries people bow to express this same idea of respect and
greeting.

 Types of social interaction

Interaction may be focused or unfocused. When two or more

individuals agree to sustain an interaction with one or more
particular goals in mind, they are engaged in a focused interaction.
People playing cards, or simply enjoying conversation, or seeing a
movie are involved in focused interaction. Focused interactions are
the basic building blocks of all social organizations.

 Four basic types of focused interaction:

Exchange
Cooperation
Conflict
Completion

Exchange. When people do something for each other with the

expressed purpose of receiving a reward or return, they are involved
in an exchange.

Cooperation. This is a form of social interaction in which people

act together to promote common interests or achieve shared goals.

Conflict. In cooperative interaction, people join forces to achieve a

common goal. By contrast, people in conflict struggle with one
another for some commonly prized object or value. In a conflict
relationship, a person can gain only at someone else’s expense.

Competition. The fourth type social interaction is competition. It is

a form of conflict in which individuals or group confine their conflict
within agreed-upon rules. It is common form of interaction in the
modern world.

 The Dynamics of socialization

Functional approaches. Functionalism approaches socialization

from the perspective of the group rather than the individual. The
functionalist perspective assumes that small children are relatively
unformed. Through socialization, they develop a social self that
reflects the society in which they live. According to this, people are
passive beings who are programmed in the ways of their society,
leading to the criticism that functionalism present an “over-socialized
conception of man”

Symbolic interaction. An analysis of what people say and do is not

sufficient to explain human behaviour. We also need to understand
the meaning that people attach to their words and actions. People
employ symbols to convey meanings to one another.

Conflict theory and socialization. The conflict perspective puts the

experience of socialization in a different light. It takes note of how
social customs and institution are arranged to perpetuate class
distinctions. This theory argues that child rearing practices vary by
social class and affect the life chances of those being socialized.

 Agencies of socialization
Family- the basic unit of any society; it serves as the primary
agency for socialization.
Peer groups- in the Philippines, and in other countries of the
world, the peer group plays a very important role in the
process of socialization. Children are relatively equal, while the
inequality of parents and children enable parents to force
children to obey rules they neither understand nor like. By
virtue of their age, sex, and rank (as child and as student), peer
“stand in the same relation to persons in authority” and
therefore see the world through the same eyes.
The media- like television, radio, and other broadcast media as
print media, play a very important role in the process of
socialization. The radio or television program to which the
child exposed will certainly influence his personality, values.
Belief system.
The school- an institution that is established explicitly for the
purpose of socializing people. In modern societies the school is
considered the primary agents for weaning children from
home and introducing them into the larger society. At school,
children are expected to obey not because they love their
teachers or depend on them but because rules are rules must
be obeyed.
The workplace- formal socialization takes place in the
workplace. However, much of the socialization to the
organization’s values and outlook happen informally. Learning
the skills and orientation to one’s job means socialization at
workplace.
The church- which the individual is introduced will certainly
affect his being. The religious belief, as well as practices will
surely influence the individual’s belief system and value
judgments.
The neighbourhood- street corner education is very common
in the country. The child is introduced to the realities of life in
the neighbourhood. He learns particular sets of values and
beliefs from the people in the neighbourhood. This is so since
privacy to many individuals means going out their homes and
staying in the neighbourhood, particularly with children of the
same age.
CONCLUSION

Socialization means to it if the person or individual know how to take care of

him/her. An individual must not be isolate from his childhood in order for him to
be able to act upon the society. And socialization undergoes adaptation and
changes as long as he lives.

Socialization is vital link between cultures. If this process of cultural transmission

is disrupted, a culture disintegrates or even dies.

Communication is a very important role in socialization in order for the people or

group to work together.
 Sociology and Anthropology

Topic:
Socialization
Sub-topics:
Becoming a Person: biology and Culture
Processes of socialization
Importance of socialization
The social frame of reference
Social Learning
Components of Socialization
Types of social interaction
The dynamics of Socialization
Agencies of Socialization

Pamfilo, Mell Ryan

HRM 2-2
Mr. Custodio